Chapter 23 - Fire

The remaining walk back to the palace was quiet. Ela took me to my room and said her farewell.

Laying on the bed, being tired yet unable to fall asleep was quite uncomfortable. With many thoughts in my head, sleep slowly drifted in.

...

In the morning Mildred called for me and with the others, we went down to the dining room where Ela was waiting.

Ela did not wait for us to eat, instead, she almost blurted out her request for us to go to magic school.

After we agreed she did not even bother to stay and eat, rather opting to go somewhere.

I couldn't help but look at her as she left so easily. What was she trying to do?

It was a strange feeling, seeing Reyna again. They talked to each other so easily, it was like they were never gone. While joining in on the conversation, my voice lacked strength.

There were many hours that were free to use for spell memorization, yet all that time was spent wondering to myself.

Before I knew it, evening came. My eyes were on the setting sun, looking out from the balcony of my room.

Like a flash, it was night and the stars shone brightly in the sky.

Under the moonlight, I cast the ice spell, making my hands covered in frost. Then the earth spell covered my hands in dirt.

My feet fell on the railing, my hands were gripping onto the wall. My body was dangerously traversing the indentations across the walls.

There were windows and balconies all over the walls. After taking a peek inside, my eyes would look down the wall and my legs would slowly shift over to new footholds.

When my foot was placed onto a railing of a balcony, there was a yelp of surprise.

"Who's there?"

My other foot lightly tapped onto the railing.

"Ah, it's me Jay"

Ela was distressed.

"What are you doing here? How did you get here? And why are you still awake?"

Ela was sitting at a desk, holding a feather tipped with ink. There were countless papers scattered across her desk and crumpled balls of paper on the floor.

What was she doing so late at night?

"Well, why are you still awake? It is the night after all."

Ela put the feather in an inkwell.

"I was writing letters to other nobles, I must finish them before morning."

My feet were firmly planted on the railing as if the floor was lava.

"Eh? Guess you will have a long sleep in the morning."

Ela leaned back in her chair.

"No, I have other duties I must attend to. I do not have the time to sleep in the morning."

My eyebrow raised.

"Then when will you sleep?"

Ela closed her eyes and rubbed her head with her index and middle finger.

"I suppose whenever I am permitted."

...Permitted?

"Are you not permitted right now? I can't see anyone trying to stop you..."

Ela opened her eyes and looked at me.

"I have duties I must perform. Anyways, you still haven't answered, why are you here?"

Hmm...

"I guess I just want to talk."

Ela sighed in frustration.

"In the middle of the night?"

Oh.

"I guess this was not the most convenient time or place to have a conversation with someone."

Ela raised one eyebrow and glared at me.

"You realized this now?"

The floor looks really good right now, so I'm just going to stare at it... not embarrassed or anything.

"I thought about what you said."

Ela shifted her body towards me.

"What did I say?"

There was an awkward silence.

"Not saving someone even though you could've."

Ela started to tap her desk, annoyed.

"What about it?"

A sad smile appeared on my face.

"There have been times where I have not saved someone even though I could've. Many times in fact."

The ropes bounding my arms. The slaves were crying. The guy that was beaten to death. My eyes were on him the whole time, yet my body did nothing.

"I always suppressed the thoughts in my head, that I was neglecting people that I could have saved. People that I could have at least tried to save."

Ela stopped tapping.

"That is shameful."

My smile disappeared.

"Perhaps."

I gazed towards the stars.

"But we are all trying to fight for our happiness."

My thoughts drifted back to Mildred, who had given up her powers to save her sister.

"We can't save everybody."

Ela frowned and clenched her fist.

"But we can try."

Shaking my head, sad laughter started to pour out of me.

"Then how do we save ourselves?"

I stared into my hand.

"If we spend our lives trying to save others we will be unable to save ourselves."

Ela closed her eyes.

"It will be a worthy sacrifice."

I clenched my hand.

"Will it really?"

Ela furrowed her brows and opened her eyes.

"Yes. How could it not be?"

Memories of Mildred came into my mind. How she encouraged me, consoled me, and saved my life.

"You can help people..."

My decision to go into the forest came back into my mind. I was running away because I did not want to think about my dead friends.

I was running but...

More than anything, the journey to the forest was to change me. To fight the order of the world.

"Only you can truly help yourself."

Ela clenched her fists.

"Then tell me. When my brother was dying, begging me for help, should I have let him die? To not even reach out my hand?"

My heart started to ache. My thoughts started to wander back to my first death. I didn't even try to save the slaves.

I was too scared.

"I don't know. I don't know what you should have done."

A tear fell from Ela.

"If I wasn't so scared my brother would still be here. If I just reached out. If I just..."

Ela's voice trailed off. Slowly, my eyelids closed.

"We make mistakes. We learn from them. Maybe in hindsight, everything seems so easy but..."

There was a seed of guilt and fear deep in my heart. But I was not some almighty hero.

"Is it truly so easy? Maybe we think logically that the action itself was not difficult and rather simple. But is that the truth?"

My body started to shiver, recalling the bitter cold that made living so hard, so painful.

"It is hard. It is really hard. How can I not be scared? I'm simply a weak person."

Ela was shaking.

"So I'm just weak? A failure?"

My head slowly shook.

"No. How can it be easy for a weak person to endure feelings of guilt, regret, and sadness? As weak as a person they were, they had to be strong, too strong."

My memories of the forest rang in my head. There were many times when I almost gave up.

The small fire always burned for so long and time and time again would be put out.

I considered foregoing the fire altogether. To let the cold swallow me whole.

But I didn't.

The fire, as many times as it was put out, was lit again, to oppose the entire tundra once more.

"Who is helped by the feelings of guilt? It isn't ourselves, nor the people we feel guilty for."

My eyes met with Ela's. Tears started to fall from my face.

"So who are we sacrificing ourselves for?"

Ela was unable to hold herself together.

"I... I miss him so much. I want to hold my brother again, just one more time. Brother... I'm so sorry. Brother... Why did you have to go... Why did you leave me?"

Ela continued to sob and my eyes fell onto the stars.

I never realized how beautiful they were...

The night deepened and a faint glow of moonlight shone on my face.

Ela started to recompose herself. She walked out to the balcony and stood next to me.

"I never looked up at the stars like this before..."

A smile formed on my lips.

"Neither have I... It's like seeing something new that was always in plain sight."

I looked at her over my shoulder. Her green eyes glowed faintly in the dark. She had long blonde hair, that would try to catch the wind, longingly reaching to wherever it blew. She always tried to keep a stern face that made her look mature, but right now it felt like I was looking at a child.

Ela's eyes became adrift.

"Every day... I imagine what it would be like if my brother was still with me."

Ela put her hands onto the railings.

"Living life as one of the royalty tended to be dull and burdensome. My brother would always play with me in the short amounts of free time we had. He was the only thing that made me feel happy."

Ela gripped the railing harder.

"One time, my brother wanted us to play far from home, far from where we were allowed to go. I tried to convince my brother not to go, but he was insistent and I was afraid of him hating me. So we went."

Ela leaned over the edge like she was having trouble supporting herself.

"In our mischief, he jumped into a massive lake. I didn't want to get wet so I stayed outside. My brother was trying to convince me to join him, swimming further in, saying he was going to leave me."

Ela took in a deep breath.

"But there was a black fish in the water with large jaws."

Ela tensed her face.

"I was so scared, I couldn't move. I had to watch as he died, begging me to help him."

Ela smiled sadly.

"I let myself become a puppet of my guilt. I always tried to help people to convince myself that I was a good person."

Ela peeked at me.

"I suppose I have to accept myself for who I am, as ugly and shameful it may be."

A smile blossomed on my face.

"I wonder why I can only see you as beautiful."